


blow something up

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Non-Force Sensitive Ben Solo, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Wordcount: Over 5.000, non-force sensitive Rey, smugglers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25621018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In which not a single one of the main four is Force-sensitive, but yet they still manage to find each other and blow a fair amount of things up, deal with the First Order, find a stolen ship, lightspeed skip, yell at each other, and blow more things up. Not really in that order, but it's pretty close in any case.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey & Ben Solo
Kudos: 2
Collections: May The Anon Be With You: Forever Anonymous Star Wars Collection





	blow something up

"I would like to mention that we're all going to die."

"Stop being so pessimistic," Poe ordered, twisting in his seat and flicking the right switches, letting Rey take over the piloting for a few moments. At first, their switches back and forth had been jerky, hard, had needed a lot of work. Now, they were smooth. Swift. Didn't need words, only small gestures. It was automatic. "We haven't died yet."

"I'm with Ben," Finn said, stumbling as Poe took ahold of the controls again, and executed a tight barrel-roll that was crossed with a turnaround, so they were facing the direction they'd just come from. "We _are_ going to die."

"Shut up." Rey snapped, as they jettisoned between a pair of TIE fighters, the wings of their craft narrowly missing the panels of the black ships. "But unless somebody gets shooting back, then yes, we _will_ die."

"I'm going, I'm going!" Finn shouted, throwing himself towards the ladder that led to the gunner's post. Thrown was the right word, Ben reflected, when former Stormtrooper collapsed against the rungs as Poe looped backwards, above the fighters, narrowly missing the gunfire that flew through the dead of space. The man managed to haul himself up, and Ben focused back on the two pilots.

They were some of the best he'd known. Rey, while she hadn't left Jakku until she was eleven, had scavenged flight trainee programs, and taught herself to fly on the simulations. It had been a slight learning curve, moving over to the _Slicer_ , as it was more or less a custom ship at that point, but she'd picked it up quickly enough. And Poe had been flying for as long as he was old enough to sit up and hold onto the controls. But the First Order had the best training programs in the galaxy.

He gave it fifty-fifty. Poe was fully willing to pull stupid stunts, just like Ben's father, and Rey was perfectly willing to ignore any sense of logic if it meant she could try something that most people would consider insane, if not suicidal. And they pulled said things off all the time.

The sounds of Finn returning fire as Rey took over the controls again, letting Poe reach back and alter the ship's settings filled the air, reverberating in Ben's chest where he sat at the communicator's seat, right behind Rey, chair twisted to the side, so he was facing the wall and not the front of the ship. They dove, and Ben clenched the armrests of his seat, heart thumping with adrenaline.

"This—" Ben repeated, shouting over the noise of the sublight engines, blaster fire, and whine of the TIE fighters, "—is the worst idea!"

"Shut up!" Rey repeated as Poe twisted back around, hand on the lightspeed controls. "And if you dare do that, Poe Dameron I swear—"

Poe shoved the control forwards, and they shot into hyperspace. A moment later, he pulled the stick back, and they dropped back into real-space with a lurch. Finn shouted over the comm's, demanding to know if Poe was being an idiot once more, and Ben didn't bother to answer. They all knew that he was being an idiot. Twisting the ship around, so that they were facing away from the sun they'd almost crashed into, Poe launched them back into hyperspace.

"I told you we can't lightspeed skip!" Rey snapped, unbuckling from her chair and spinning around, diving for the pannel that lined the wall right beside the ladder. She tore it off and started to paw through the wires that crossed each other in a mess of colours. "Poe!"

"Do you want to die or what?" Poe snapped, as they dropped back out. Ben pulled up a view of behind them with his control panel and winced at the sight.

"Well, you're not losing them, I can tell you that much," he muttered, and they made another jump. Rey shrieked as several wires sparked, overheating, nearly burning her fingers. She started to curse in a language that Ben knew but refused to answer, at least in the middle of a firefight. "So try something new?"

Poe lunged across the controls, smacking something, and there was a trail of binary from the ladder, where BB8 was hanging via a grappling wire. The orange and white droid was upside down, his head spinning around and around and around. "Last jump!"

" _We better not die!_ " Finn shouted from above, and Ben nodded in agreement, despite knowing that Poe couldn't see him. They dropped out of hyperspace, and the Slicer spun around, engines seemingly dying. For a single second, they didn't move, hovering in the dead of space. And then the two TIE fighters dropped out of hyperspace before them, and green beams of light flew forwards, slamming into one of them from Finn's gunning station.

Poe rocketed their ship forwards, and Rey cried out again, as she was thrown against the wall by the force of the acceleration. Ben gasped, grabbing onto the controls before him to steady himself, as they flew straight at the final fighter. Poe hit something on the controls, and blaster fire from the front-mounted canons lit up the dead of space in green, sending the fighter up in flames.

"Kriff," Rey swore, as the sounds of panting filled the air. Ben twisted to look at her, in time to see her push herself up, holding a hand close to her chest, a streak of bright red cutting across it. "Kriff, where's the medkit at."

BB8 warbled an answer that went along the lines of _your fault you find it_ , and Ben sunk into his chair with a sigh, closing his eyes. When he'd run away from the Acadamy Massacre, this hadn't been what he'd expected to find. He hadn't expected to run into Poe again, hadn't expected for Poe to have been captured by the First Order somewhere down the line and dragged a stormtrooper out with him—no matter what Finn said, he was not the type to make an actively suicidal decision like that—or to end up with a rather fiery scavenger with a staff.

"Below," Ben muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Ugh. Can we agree not to do that again?"

"I see this as a win." Poe declared, turning them around, and starting to head away from the two wrecks. "Blew up some fighters, we got our load, nobody's dead. Other than those pilots but—uh... we're alive."

"Whatever," Ben said as Rey ordered BB8 to move out of her way. The droid dropped down onto the cockpit floor and wheeled over towards Poe, beeping and chirping at the pilot. Ben watched Rey climb down the ladder, instead of up, towards the cabins. The _Slicer_ was a pretty small ship. At first, he was pretty sure it had started as some kind of U-wing. Now, he wasn't sure what it was. "Should we check on whatever Rey was working on?"

" _If you touch that, I will kill you!_ " Rey shouted from below, and Poe winced.

"Yeah, let's not."

Ben stood up, and walked past BB8, who was complaining about the strain on his circuits or something along those lines; Ben wasn't interested in the droids whines, at least not then. Poe was the one that had nearly blown up their ship, he could deal with the droid. He climbed down the ladder, finding Rey sitting on one of the crates they were transporting, holding a suture needle between her teeth, wiping at her hand with a cloth. He left her there, uninteresting in listening to her rant about Poe's tendency to try and get them killed.

Instead, he sat down across from her, on the floor, back against another group of crates. The _Slicer_ didn't have any actual living quarters. They'd taken out the bunks ages ago to make space for their loads instead. Most of the time they either slept in the cockpit—that was mostly Rey and Poe—or among the cargo—Ben and Finn.

"Can't believe this," Rey muttered, stabbing the suture needle into her palm. She winced, biting back a scream. Ben winced in sympathy. Needles were not fun. "Kriffing Poe. Thinks he knows everything."

" _I can hear you!_ " Poe shouted, and Finn added something along the lines of _we can all hear you_ , which both Rey and Ben ignored. Ben reached up to his forehead, pressing hard into his skull, trying to push the budding headache away. He stayed where he was, listening to the ship's engine's and Rey's quiet mumbling, trying not to think too hard.

It didn't last long. Poe dropped down from the cockpit, followed by Finn, which told Ben that they'd given BB8 the controls. That was fine; Ben was fairly sure the droid was more concerned with their lives than their actual pilots were sometimes. Said pilots both glared at each other for a full minute, before Finn spoke up.

"We're going to enter hyperspace soon," he said, and Rey shut the medkit with a bit more force than she needed to, standing and moving to put it away. "We can do that, right?"

"Yeah," Rey said words clipped as she spoke. "I'll rewrite the hyperdrive controls so we don't blow ourselves up."

"Because we're all about that." Ben deadpanned quietly. Finn made a noise that could either be him agreeing or a miniature freak out over the reality of that statement. Ben wasn't sure which it was.

Rey climbed back up the ladder, and they heard her speaking to BB8, mostly along the lines of _moronic males of the species_ , to which the droid replied with a question about _what_ _males_. Poe sighed, and slumped against one of the other crates, leaning back against the wall. "I'm pretty sure we've got a bounty on us now."

"Yay." Ben drawled, knocking his head back against the crate he was sitting against. "Didn't we already have one?"

* * *

"Hey, Finn, wake up."

_What?_

"Finn, I swear to the Force, if you don't get up now, I _will_ electrocute you."

Oh. Ben.

Finn blinked open his eyes, lifting a hand to shield himself from the bright lights as he adjusted to them, squinting at the—he wasn't sure what Ben did. He knew the guy could pilot almost as well as Rey could, although he always let her take up the copiloting seat, and he knew he was a good shot, but Ben let Finn take the gunners seat. The guy was weird, that much was for sure.

"Wha's happening?" Finn grumbled, rolling over so he could look at Ben. "Wh's dead?"

"Nobody," Ben replied sharply, standing up so that Finn could only see his boots. Unwilling to use up more energy than necessary, Finn didn't bother to look up at the man's face. "We're about to drop out of hyperspace. Get up."

Finn groaned, and Ben ignored him, walking away, footsteps echoing around the hold of the Slicer. After a minute, Finn got up and put away his sleeping roll. He heard Ben's footsteps clang on the ladder as he checked his blaster to make sure it was functioning correctly. It was a Blie-44, a small, handheld pistol that had once been a dark grey colour but had built up enough grime and rust over time that it was more of a coppery-brown colour. Satisfied, Finn holstered it and climbed up to join the others.

"Hey, Finn." Poe greeted, twisted around in his seat, fingers running across the panel on the wall, under the dozens of switches. Finn had no clue what any of them did. He'd been trained as a ground soldier, which meant blasters, hand combat, and weaponry. Not spaceships or droids or communications or anything that the others could do. Poe found what he'd been looking for, and flicked it up, settling back into his seat. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah, great," Finn said, staying by the ladder, and holding onto it with one hand. BB8 warbled something. Finn frowned. He got most of what the droid said these days, which was an improvement upon the start, where he'd mostly guessed and got zapped a lot by the droid when he was wrong. But it still wasn't consistent. "Uh... sure?"

BB8 grumbled something to himself—Finn wasn't sure if droids had the same idea of gender as most of the galaxy did, but the sphere never seemed too concerned with how the others addressed him, so Finn just left it as it was—and rolled under the pilot's controls, his head sliding to the side so that he could fit. Poe snorted and reached for the hyperdrive controls.

"Dropping out now," he announced, and Finn braced himself for the jolt. They slowed considerably, falling into realspace, the swirling streaks around them freezing into place as a planet rose above them, dull and a boring tan colour. But that's not what drew Finn's attention. What pulled his attention was the First Order ship that Poe dove under, a Star Dreadnought. Finn's grip on the ladder tightened. Ben tensed, his hand sliding down to his hip, where his weapons rested. Rey made a small choking sound, and Poe swore under his breath.

"Why are they on Jakku?" Rey hissed, clutching the copilot controls as tightly as Finn held the ladder, if not tighter. "What does Jakku have that they want?"

"Wrecks," Ben answered, his voice stretched with tension. "But I'm betting that that's not what they want."

"There's no Resistance presence on Jakku," Poe said in confusion, continuing to guide the _Slicer_ towards the planet's surface, and Finn could only imagine the pilot's expression when they all jumped to the same thought. "Wait. Did we ever get the memo on what we're transporting?"

"No," Ben said, and Finn started down the ladder. He hadn't gone two rungs before he decided to screw it and just dropped down, landing hard, ankles jarring. He bolted towards the nearest crate, only to realize he only had a blaster on him, and that wasn't going to open the crates. Behind him, he heard someone else land on the floor, probably Ben. A second later, he was proven correct when the dark-haired man appeared beside him, holding a crowbar.

Finn stepped aside, and Ben wedged the tool into the crates seam, wiggling it up and down to make sure it was secure. He pushed down hard with his weight, and the top cracked off. Not wasting any time, Finn pushed the lid off, and both men stared down into the contents of the crate. Bombs. Dozens upon dozens of small, handheld, spherical bombs, each one with the symbol of the First Order on them. Ben gagged.

"They're bombs," Finn confirmed, climbing back into the cockpit, and leaving Ben behind to check the other crates. "First Order."

"Kriff," Poe swore, and Finn swallowed.

"We can't deliver those."

"Why would someone want us to deliver to the First Order?" Rey demanded, and Finn had no answer. Ben, however, did.

He pulled himself up on the ladder, just high enough so that his head was in the cockpit, expression grim. "It's a win-win. First Order gets a thorn out of their side, and they get a shipment of munitions for free. They're going to trap us."

BB8 beeped mournfully. Finn grabbed onto the back of Ben's chair to keep himself upright. He felt like he was about to vomit. Rey might be able to get away as just a prisoner, where she could escape. She didn't even have an ID up until a few years back, and her record was clean. Poe and Ben? Less likely, but still possible. But Finn had no chance. He'd either be sent for reprogramming or terminated on the spot. He didn't like either option.

_"Finn, you need to breathe."_

Reprogramming... Finn had seen the 'troopers that went through it. They came back as blank slates. They didn't have any personality. Everything was _First_ _Order_ , _First_ _Order_ , _First_ _Order_. They ate when they were told, with a dull, droid-like precision. They slept the moment they were told. They did exactly what they were supposed to. They would slaughter their siblings in arms to do it if that's what it took.

_"Finn!"_

_"You're not helping him!"_

But the others would be killed too. For helping him. Blaster bolts through the hearts or heads, if they were 'lucky'. An injection maybe. No, the First Order wouldn't waste that sort of thing on them. Maybe they wouldn't waste anything on them, just let them starve in cells and throw them into the incinerator.

Something zapped his leg, and Finn shouted in surprise and pain, jumping away. He tripped over someone's foot, sprawling to the floor. He heard Rey shout Ben's name, something about not harming friends, but he didn't register it. He was panting, sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he scrambled back, away from everyone. And then someone grabbed the front of his shirt collar and yanked him towards them.

Rey shouted again, but Ben didn't let go, hauling Finn to his feet, and shoving him into Ben's chair. Finn found himself staring into the man's eyes; they weren't angry, they weren't scared, they weren't anything other than... intense. Very, very intense.

"Calm. Down." Ben ordered in a voice that gave no room for argument. Finn drew in a shaky breath, sinking back into the chair, staring at Ben. Behind the man, he spotted Rey activating the trapdoor that shut off the cargo bay from the cockpit, and with another wave of nausea, he realized he'd almost fallen down the ladder. "They are not going to get any of us. Do you hear me?"

"Ben, calm—" Poe started to say, but shut up a moment later when he spotted Ben's glare. He went back to piloting, and the _Slicer_ shuttered as they entered Jakku's atmosphere, the planet's gravity wrapping around the ship. "Rey, _gravity_."

"On it," she promised, darting over to the switches on the wall, and Finn was yanked away from watching her by Ben, who twisted the seat to get his attention. Finn went back to the stare of the older teenager's eyes instead.

"Nothing is going to happen," Ben said, leaving no room for argument. "We're dropping this crap off on the planet, and jumping out of here. Hear me? We're not even going to stop. Just push them out into the desert. Make some scavengers day. Understand?"

Finn nodded, and Ben stood up straight. "Good."

And apparently, that was that. Finn was fairly sure that that wasn't how you were supposed to deal with... whatever the hell Finn had just had, a seizure or something, he didn't know anything about medical things, but nobody on the _Slicer_ was a medic. Worryingly intelligent scavenger, scarily good hand-to-hand fighter, heart-stoppingly insane pilot, yes. Doctors? Nope.

"Okay," Poe said, voice shaking slightly. "We're almost low enough. Finn, take gunners. Rey, Ben, you get the crates. BB8, make sure we're not being tracked."

* * *

Rey hadn't seen Jakku in three years. She hadn't wanted to see it. She'd figured out years ago that nobody was coming, and even if they were, they wouldn't have left her on a trash heap like Jakku where it was more likely she'd get killed than anything else. The sixteen-year-old had been more than willing to sneak on the _Slicer_ five years previously, even if it meant she'd end up dropped off on a different planet where she didn't know anybody.

And technically, Rey wasn't on Jakku. She was on the Slicer, with the cargo bay open, the wind from their speed tearing at her clothes. She dragged the first of the crates out towards the edge, and took a step back, kicking it off. It went sailing down, plummeting towards the sand, where it exploded in a wave of light and sand.

"This—" Ben shouted over the wind. "Is going to attract attention."

Rey couldn't help but want to say good. She hated Jakku. If she could have the Death Star from the old stories, she'd blow it up without hesitation. Nobody good ever ended up on Jakku, in her opinion, and she'd be doing a favour to both those who lived there, and the galaxy at large.

Ben shoved another crate out, and they started to work in earnest, trying to hurry as much as they could, leaving a trail across the wastes. Kicking the last one out, Rey let out a breath of relief. They could leave.

She was pissed. And she was certain that they'd end up back on Lothal, ready to have words with the lasat that had hired them to do the job. Brushing her hands off on her clothes, she watched the bay doors begin to slide shut, slower than she'd like.

"Wonder why we had First Order fighters after us if they were about to capture us anyways," she said, and Ben shrugged, staring out across the horizon.

"Who knows why the First Order does—"

He cut himself off, seemingly frozen in place. Rey frowned, waving a hand before his face. "Ben?"

"That's the _Millenium_ _Falcon,_ " Ben whispered, whirling around and sprinting towards the ladder. He swung around it and begun to climb, boots echoing on the medal. Rey glanced back outside, but the doors were practically shut, and she couldn't see whatever had freaked Ben out. She charged after him instead, starting up the ladder, staff bumping against her shoulders as she climbed.

"The what?" she demanded, pulling herself into the cockpit, where Ben was already behind Poe, telling him to turn around and do it right away. "What's happening?"

"The _Millenium_ _Falcon,_ " Poe answered dryly, but there was a note of something below. Excitement, maybe. Or interest. He obeyed Ben, spinning the Slicer around, and starting to backtrack.

"The ship that did the Kessel Run in fourteen par—" Rey began to ask, excitement boiling up under her skin as she pulled herself forwards, dropping her staff on the ground at her feet as she sat down in her chair. Ben cut in before she could finish her sentence.

"Twelve."

"Whatever," Poe grumbled, and Ben pointed straight ahead. Rey squinted. A sort of flat, somewhat circular ship was flying across the horizon, a group of black dots chasing after it. Rey had no clue how Ben had noticed it, much less been able to name it from such a distance. "Holy kriff, I think it is."

" _Why are we interested in this?_ " Finn demanded from above, voice muffled from the walls.

"It's my dad's ship," Ben said, focused on the battle ahead. Rey startled at the implication.

"Your father is Han Solo?" she demanded, looking up at him. Ben's jaw was clenched tightly, his fingers digging into the back of Poe's seat as they gained on the battle. He nodded once, stiffly. "You're Han Solo's son!"

"Didn't we go over this already?" Poe muttered, pulling up from the desert ground, higher into the air. They were right behind the firefight now, gaining quickly. Rey took ahold of the front canons, focusing on aiming, and not the insane idea that had just come up.

" _We did not go over this!_ " Finn shouted, apparently having heard Poe. "We did not go over the fact that your dad is a war hero!"

"Panic later, shoot now!" Poe ordered, and green lights flew forwards, slamming into the first TIE fighter, Finn's aim not hindered by his panic. Well, Rey supposed that if it were hindered by his panic, they all would have been dead by now, so she shouldn't be that surprised.

She waited for Poe to line her up for the shot, fingers vibrating over the controls.

* * *

The final TIE fighter exploded in an array of fire and metal, and Poe pulled up narrowly avoiding the explosion, as they soared up towards the upper atmosphere, after the _Falcon_. Beside him, Ben was radiating nerves, coiled tighter than anything that Poe could think of. And Poe had to admit, that was fair. Ben hadn't seen his father in person since he was what? Seven? Eight, at the most. That was pushing ten years. Sure, the two of them had talked over comms and whatnot, but not for five years. Not since the attack.

"Can we contact whoever's flying that thing?" Poe asked, and Finn shouted something about _you mean Ben's dad?_ with enough irritation to remind them that he was still annoyed that nobody had told him about Ben's family. "Yeah, can we contact him?"

"He's not flying," Ben said quietly, and Rey let out a squawk of what. But Ben shook his head, expression blank, completely shut down. "That's not his style. Someone else has it. Someone stole it."

The venom in his voice reminded Poe that this guy was the one who had stormed after a group of half-drunk smugglers in the Mid Rim, and laid them all on their asses within two minutes, despite there being over a dozen of them, all of them armed, and Ben didn't have a single weapon. This was the guy who'd broken into a First Order base on his own to get Poe out when Ben was fifteen and Poe was fourteen. This was the guy that could probably lay a Jedi out and come out unscathed.

"So let's steal it back," Rey said brightly. Poe had the feeling that she was more interested in stealing the ship than stealing it back. Rey was the kind of person who didn't take any shit and liked to get herself in the worst situations ever, just to see if she could get out. She was like Ben in that way, except she tried to get in those situations, and Ben just got irritated when he found himself in them, _again_.

" _What are we stealing?_ Finn demanded, and BB8 let out a stream of binary in answer. " _Nope, not helping. Too fast._ "

"Stealing the Falcon." Ben echoed, eyes tracking the ship as they broke through Jakku's upper atmosphere. Poe twisted around, flicking the switches that changed the engine's configuration to zero-g. "Not easy."

"Shit," Rey swore as the Falcon blurred into hyperspace. Poe reached up, and they jumped right after the craft, stars blurring around them. Behind him, he heard Finn's boots clanging on the leader and footsteps. "Kriff, drop out! Drop out, now!"

Poe obeyed, yanking the control back, and realspace appeared around them. Rey swore again, louder and more creative, and Ben's fingers made the material of Poe's seat creak as he dug his fingers in even harder. There was nothing. No planets, no stars, no meteor belts. Nothing at all. The Falcon was gone.

"How—" Finn demanded, and Poe glanced up at the former stormtrooper, who was probably the most sensible out of their group when he wasn't trying to be a good person and thinking that meant being stupidly heroic. "Where are they?"

"The Falcon has a hyperspace nav that makes it almost impossible to follow through hyperspace," Ben said dully, devoid of emotion. "It was installed after Luke killed Vader because Dad was sick of being followed around by the Empire's forces. He never took it out."

They were all silent. Ben's grip on the chair loosened, and he turned around. Poe leaned around the edge of his seat and watched the eighteen-year-old drop down the ladder shaft, not even bothering to grab onto said ladder. Poe met Rey's eyes first, then Finn. He sighed, softly, and BB8 warbled quietly, not wanting Ben to overhear. "Yeah. Let him be."

"He's probably punching something anyway," Rey muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. "Where to now?"

"I don't care," Finn said, sitting down on the floor, BB8 rolling up and nudging against him. "Don't zap me."

* * *

Grunts of effort filled the air, as Rey climbed down into the cargo bay. In the middle of the space, Ben was shadowboxing, fighting against an imaginary opponent. Or, rather, several, twisting and turning, feet shifting on the ground, hands darting out and legs kicking at the air. Rey, staff hanging off her shoulder, blaster clipped to her hip, leaned against the ladder, watching in silence. She knew that Ben knew she was there. He was perceptive, in the same way, she and Finn were. You didn't notice things on Jakku and you'd miss something valuable. You didn't notice things on the battlefield, and you ended up dead.

Ben's final kick narrowly missed the wall, brushing against it, and he froze in place, holding his stance for a moment before his shoulders dropped, and he stepped out of the stance, turning towards Rey. "Hey."

"Hey," she replied, resting her head against the ladder. "Bored yet?"

He scoffed, and sat down against the wall, closing his eyes. She didn't move from where she stood, just watching. After a minute or so, Ben spoke up. "There's a reason I didn't mention my family."

"I didn't say anything."

He opened his eyes, looking right at her. "I don't need the Force to know that you want to know."

She did want to know. Rey didn't remember her family, although she was certain they were class-one assholes. Poe didn't talk about his parents all too much, seeing that they were both dead, and Finn didn't remember his family any more than Rey did. But sometimes Poe mentioned things. About how his mother had been a Rebel, how she'd taught him to fly. Rey wished that she had a family like Poe's. They sounded wonderful.

"My mom... she's a senator. Or was. I don't know if she still is." Ben started, finger tracing a circle on his knee. "My dad's—you know. And... my uncle's Luke Skywalker. The Jedi."

Rey nodded in understanding. Ben swallowed, before continuing. "And I'm... I'm not a diplomat. Or a great pilot or smuggler or anything. And I'm not Force-sensitive either. It's just... a lot of pressure, you know? My grandparents on my mom's side, they were famous. Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala."

"The Jedi."

"And the senator." Ben agreed, nail digging into his kneecap. "She was elected Queen of Naboo when she was a _teenager_. She went on to be Naboo's senator after that.

"And then, there's me. I just... I was sent to the Jedi Academy. And I couldn't use the Force. People didn't like that. They thought only people with the Force should attend. I never had... friends."

"That's... dumb." Rey settled on, and Ben knocked his head against the wall, making a small banging noise. Rey sat down, leaning against the ladder, and pulling her knees up to her chest. "They didn't like you because—"

"I wasn't _special_."

"But you're the best fighter I've ever met."

"Had to do something to keep busy." Ben pointed out dryly, but his lips were curled up in a rueful smile. "Didn't hurt that I have a natural talent for it, and spent most of my free time watching the lightsaber technique holocrons. Had to kick their butts _somehow_."


End file.
